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The census shows a big increase in the number of daily speakers of Irish in Dublin. We’re not demanding anything. We’re just saying that we exist, writes Osgur Ó Ciardha.

A YEAR AGO, I lost patience. I was sick of the same old conversations with strangers every time I went out for a jar with my friends. I was exhausted from the passing remarks about the language we use. It was as if people didn’t believe that people like me could exist, and that I was trying to pull some sort of trick by speaking Irish.

I was raised in the Irish language; I feel more comfortable, more confident and happier in myself when I speak Irish. Even though I’m surrounded by English, it’s not my language at all.

I wanted to find a way to show the world that people like me, and the thousands of other Irish speakers, do exist – and that this wasn’t some big pretence. I understood from what I read in the media that many of the arguments against my language rights came from a mistaken, but prevalent, belief that we simply didn’t exist.

It’s Irish speakers who hear Irish spoken most often, at social events, in a natural and normal manner. Those who don’t speak Irish, who rarely attend such things, don’t tend to hear it spoken in that social context.

It was our aim to create a public event that would see Irish used in a natural, normal, social way. We understood, Peadar and I, that there were thousands just like us, but who, for a multitude of reasons, we had never met in enough numbers to make Irish the lingua franca. In order for anything like this to work, it had to be fun, free and easy to explain.

We organised the first Pop Up Gaeltacht last November and the Irish language social scene changed overnight. Pop Up Gaeltacht has grown exponentially. We still “organise” one Pop Up Gaeltacht per month here in Dublin, but there is usually another one or two Pop Ups somewhere else in the world every week.

People ask us how they can organise events of their own nearly every day. I would easily estimate that we are coming close to a hundred Pop Up Gaeltachtaí run to-date worldwide. There are versions in Scots Gaelic, Manx and Cornish, which fills our hearts with pride.

People praise us as if we had created something special

People praise us as if we had created something special, and of course that’s nice. I always say, however, that we didn’t really create anything, and people sometimes laugh at that, but I’m serious; all we did is throw a match on some petrol. The demand was there already, waiting to be realised.

From the first night in Bar Rua, hundreds of people have attended each Pop Up Gaeltacht in Dublin. In March, over a thousand punters took possession of Dame Lane. It’s not the same people at each Pop Up Gaeltacht. The makeup of the crowd depends on the venue, and we see a strong link between the bar we choose and the people who turn up. To this end, we choose a wide range of pubs, to accommodate the widest variety of crowds we can.

We’re not demanding anything. We’re just saying that we exist, and that we have value. The bars we have filled have recognised this value. For the most part, they have seen our commercial value above anything else. Once this is recognised, we don’t need to demand anything. There’s a harsh lesson here for the Irish language; one Irish speakers need to recognise, even if it’s unpalatable. As well as a debauched piss-up, Pop Up Gaeltacht creates an evident value, a commercial – rather than cultural – worth.

Much is said, often disparagingly, about the so-called Irish Language “Sector”, as if it were a waste of taxpayers’ money. As well as demanding language rights, which is just and right to do, I think Irish, Irish speakers and the Gaeltachtaí have to build a new language sector, one that also demonstrates the need for a for a permanent revival through the language’s commercial value. At the end of the day, the modern word recognises little else.

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